COMPOSER TUT 1: Ways of composing

Alright here we go then. There are several ways to compose music using a computer. I am not going to cover live playing a piece with an orchestra, though I will cover synthesizers.

If you have a question reply to the thread and I'll try to anwser it. :)

Here is what I am going to take care of here:
Basics
1. What is MIDI?
Programs
2. Sonar and CuBase
3. Fruityloops and AcidPro
Sound libraries
4. External synthesizers
5. Soundfonts
6. Gigastudio & Kontakt
7. DXi
Post editing
8. Programs
a. Adobe Audition
b. Goldwave
c. Soundforge
d. The Cooledit family
9. DirectX Plugins

So basically this will tell you how to: Work with MIDI, work with the programs involved, enhance your MIDI with libraries, and finish it all off with some post editing.


What is MIDI?
First of all a little bit of background information. How can you work with something if you do not know what exactly it is. MIDI stands for Musical Instrument Digital Interface. Where most people think MIDI is the irritating bleeping and boinking coming out of your speakers. Nothing is less true.

MIDI is basically a way for your computer to read music notes. That is why MIDI files are so small, they are only notes! This off course is a great concept, but where the real magic starts is with the fact "you play notes". Let's take an non-computer related example. Let's say I am a professional guitar player. It would be easy enough for me to play even the most complicated pieces easily. Hell I am a pro! Now let's say I am just starting out on the guitar, and I have to play something very complicated. It will probably sound crappy and nowhere as good as it would sound with the pro version. This is what is basically happening with MIDI as well. A MIDI file are the notes, but there is also a file on your computer that represents the actual instruments that play those notes. These instruments... well they suck. That is why it all sounds so bad. Basically each note the MIDI describes is a very small soundfile wich will be played the moment the MIDI reaches it. This is also the reason why some MIDI's sound different on different computers, their MIDI instruments are not exactly the same. A standard MIDI instruments bank (a MIDI bank) has 127 instruments. A standard has been set on that, so at least every bank will have the same instrument in the same place.

So having established what a MIDI is, and that it involves instruments as well. Let's take the next logical step. "How on earth can I compose like I am directing an orchestra, with instruments like these!?" The anwser is, you can't. The trick is to replace the instruments that are usually on your computer. Those instruments are usually 2MB,4MB or 8MB in total. That is 127 instruments! That is in the case of 8MB still only 62KB per instrument. Off course this is poor quality. Now imagine a MIDI bank of 800MB. Now we are talking right? The more MB, the better your MIDI will sound. There is just 1 catch. A MIDI bank is loaded directly in your RAM. Wich means you are limited to your RAM as far as improving instruments goes. I will get into that later though.

So what is the basics of MIDI. MIDI is a way to put down the notes on a computer. How we play them, and with what instruments is all up to us. This opens the floor for all the programs, libraries, synthesizers, etc. Let's move on to handling a basic MIDI composition program.

Sonar and CuBase
Coming soon

Fruityloops and AcidPro
Coming soon

External synthesizers
Coming soon

Soundfonts
So now to enhance your MIDI works with some soundfonts(*.sf2). What is a soundfont? A soundfont is basically a better sounding MIDI instrument, or even full MIDI bank. You can load soundfonts in the diverse MIDI composition applications. For specific information on that consult the paragraph about that specific application. You load them up in a channel and then you tell a midi track to use that channel. And voila you got a soundfont loaded up.

There are a few catches:
- First of all not all cards support soundfonts. To comfort you all though, all Creative cards do, but mine (wich I got specially for using giga libraries) doesn't.
- A soundfont can be only just 3 or 4 notes on an instrument.
- They load directly into your RAM memory, thus allowing you a maximum of up to the max RAM you have, in megabytes. This is quite a limitation. It is also the main reason soundfonts are not THAT good, since they can't be big enough to sound perfect.
- You can't just say, I want my MIDI trumpet to become a soundfont trumpet now. I can garantuee that it is not that easy, usually soundfonts and MIDI are not exactly the same, and your track might sound off-key, or worse.

Where do you get soundfonts? I recommend http://www.hammersound.net/ for any soundfonts, they have the best collection out there. Usually the, "the bigger they are the better they sound" rule goes up. Beware though that the *.sfark versions are actually just soundfonts packed with the sfark tool, wich can also be found there.

Once you have soundfonts on a track you can't save it as MIDI anymore, but only as the specific format for your application. Then how do you get it to the people out there? Requiring from someone that they need both the application, file, AND all the soundfonts would be silly. The trick is to record it using a program like Cooledit. You run the record in that application and you start playing in your MIDI application. Every sound your computer will make will be recorded(if you have set recording to "what U hear" in the windows volume control first). Voila, you can save it to a wav, convert it to an mp3, and hand it out to the public.

For those really creative, it is possible to make your own soundfonts and share those. There is a program called Vienna out there that let's you put it all together. What you basically need is a lot of recordings of 1 note of an instrument. Then you have to assign those small little recordings to each note. So if you wanted you could even make a "idiotic laughs" soundfont by just attaching voice actors doing idiotic laughing to each key.

Gigastudio & Kontakt
Gigastudio and Kontakt are programs that work besides your Sonar or CuBase, or other composition program. I am going to delve into the basic concepts first. And then into some details with Gigastudio. This is because I just do not own a copy of Kontakt.

So the basics behind these programs are that you can use them to load in better sounding sound libraries. What defines a better sounding library? Basically size. The bigger the file is, the better it "usually" is. But the problem with soundfonts is that they eat up your memory, and you are limited to it. The genius behind giga/kontakt libraries is that you sample them off your harddisk space, it works with a sort of virtual memory. No more limits of like 256 mb because of low RAM. Giga/Kontakt libraries also benefit from different kind of options that go farther then normal soundfonts go. Sounds great? Well let me shatter a few dreams right away. It required hardware compatiblity of something called "GSIF" wich is a sort of MIDI hardware interface. Creative (the biggest soundcard manufacturer) does not support this at the moment of writing. So if your soundcard does not have the GSIF interface, you can stop right here.

DXi
Coming soon

Cooledit
So now that you have a good *.wav file to work with we can start the post editing. You might think my track sounds good enough already. If you think so, sure skip post editing. You'll be surprised though how much you can improve your track by some post editing. My choice of sound editing program is Cooledit. Wich can be bought from http://www.syntrillium.com at a reasonable price. There are other programs that can do it. But for music editing Cooledit has it all in my opinion. The directX plugins, evertyhing really. For information on directX plugins see the next section.

So what would we want to apply to your *.wav track? Usually you will want to check out the volume level first, does it sound like you'll have to turn up your volume to insane heights to hear it a bit? Or mabye there are peaks in your track that are reason for crackling in your track. Well to low volume we can adjust, to high volume though... You will have to go back to your composing program and tone down that particular track. So to pump up that volume easily just apply a amplitude > normalize effect. This will bring your level of volume up to a good base, so it won't be VERY loud compared to other music not made by you for example. Sure you can get the desired effect by using the amplitude > amplify effect, but that might amplify your music to the point it starts crackling. So normalize gives you a good base. Now some parts might still be very low compared to other parts. I will get into how to edit that in the directX plugins section, since we will need a directX plugin for that.

Now volume adjustment is not the only post editing you will want to do. You also want to add a good reverb to your track, so it all sounds a bit more inter connected, and blends in together. So go to the delay effect > reverb section. Now there are a lot of options there, but you should not overreact. You can figgle and try a lot to get a nice sounding one. I can recommend a nice setting though. Take the slow attack verb as a basis. Then set the smooth/perception/echoey option to 0 from 30, and bring the reverb (wet) option up to 100 from 80. This gives you a nice base. I should point out though that there are a lot more and better reverbs available in directX plugins, but this is a nice one that does not use those plugins.

Finally you might want to check out your bass level, is anything overbassed in your opinion? You should develop an ear for that sort of thing. If you think there is to much bass you might want to apply a filter > FFT filter. This is used to remove or boost certain tones. You got things like bass boost and bass cut. Boosting isn't all that great though. You can select the bass cut and mess around with it, then apply it and see how it comes out.

Once you are done reverbing and cutting bass you did almost everything. Just normalize it again, cause the reverb will probably take some volume with it. Now save as an mp3 128kbit 16 bit stereo. That is usually the best setting to use. I personally also have 192kbit versions in my personal archive, but that is a choice I leave up to you.

DirectX Plugins
Coming soon

It seems like you have alot to write, I'd be willing to write the one on fruityloops.
~SOuNDSNC

id write a bit on cubase, theres probably people better than me but ill do the bit on: 'if you have cubase but a crappy sound card that doesnt support soundfonts this is what you do'.

Added the soundfonts bit.

Nice one there Maglok. Got more insight into other ways of voice/sound editing? Because if there is enough about this then I might even add a sound tutorials section.

Magic wrote something on voice editing in the past.

Added post editing with Cooledit.
I know I am not going very chronological, I guess I am just postponing the really hard part of the tutorial. :)

I prefer Goldwave :)

You can write a goldwave version if you want :)

Added basics of Giga/Kontakt libraries formats.

hmm, thanks. Thats actually quite helpful ^_^

Either I didn't see it or it's not there... but where is the phase with conversion between midi to wav. I need to get music in my map and all crappy reg mid-wav converters end up making the wav like 5 megs from a 30k midi. Help :(


*Sorry just saw it so no offense to u :P but I could still use some help minimizing the size*

You are right, it is not there yet. I have like no time lately. I might write it soon, I might write it in a few months. :) To be honest I also wrote the "easy" parts first. ;)

I started reworking the chapters. Going into details of specific software or techniques in subsections. Post editing is up first. I write "Adobe Audition", "Soundforge" and "The Cooledit Family" myself. I don't have a working copy of goldwave though, so if anyone feels "the call" contact me.

www.goldwave.com ....I'ts free....ish